Belonging

I’m still trying to settle in to my new job. I started in late October, and it really took awhile to even begin to feel like I was “one of them.” I’m still paranoid about everything I do. There have been some shakeups in the upper echelons already just since I’ve been there (one right before I started resulted in me working for a different person than I was originally going to), which makes me a little uneasy. My boss assured me that we’re fine, there won’t be lay-offs, but my PTSD after the last couple places I was at have me ready to polish up my resume again, just in case.

Just getting to know my new co-workers feels so odd. I didn’t expect to be starting over again at this point in my career. I usually make friends pretty quickly, generally find one or two ladies that I hit it off with quickly, but I’m not finding that here. Everyone has been very nice, though I’m missing that sort of instant connection, if you know what I mean. For the first time I feel very alone at work, out of my element. I realize I haven’t been there long, and the older we get the harder it becomes to make friends. Maybe I’m expecting too much.

At the same time, the senior admin has organized a half-day off for the admin team on Administrative Professional’s Day (sometime in April) which frankly I could do without. We’re going to lunch, then to some craft shop to make signs with the initial of our name, and “date established.” For most people that would be their wedding day, when their ‘family’ was established. I jokingly suggested 1692 (the date of the start of the witch trials in Salem). Nobody got the joke. One of the other ladies poked me in the arm and said, “When did you get married?”

“I’m not married.”

“Oh.”

I must be the only single person here.

So now I have to go out and make this thing that will likely go straight in the garbage when I get home. It should look something like this:

I was hoping we could have gone to a movie instead. Oh well.

I don’t seem to have much in common with anyone here, or really anywhere else for that matter. There’s a younger woman who recently started, 30-years-old, who told me she feels very comfortable with me and has confided things about herself to me already that quite frankly I could have lived with not knowing. I’m not sure if it’s her age, but I hope she calms down a little. She seems to have this intense desire to prove herself to everyone here (not a bad trait, necessarily) but I think she’s going to alienate others because she’s trying so hard to be right about everything, rather than listen and learn. Although she does frequently ask me for help with things. She keeps telling me she’s an “over-achiever.” Well, we’ll see. She doesn’t consider herself a “millennial” because she hates millennials, and thinks them very stupid and selfish and lacking in manners. She’s awfully opinionated for someone so young. Is that a trait of youth? Was I like that at her age, I wonder? I probably was, to some degree. Makes me cringe now to think of it.

Anyway, this non-millennial millennial may yet end up in my novel.

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Published by D. D. Syrdal

Writer of vampire stories and science fiction. First novel, "Revenants Abroad", available now at Amazon. If you like a vampire you can go out drinking with and still respect yourself in the morning, I think you'd like Andrej.
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7 thoughts on “Belonging”

Haha, tempting! If I was there with some witchy friends I would, but I don’t want these women knowing anything about that aspect of my life. One or two of them may have heard of Wicca, but I think it would send the rest off the deep end.

I’ve been the “Grandmother Willow” at my last few jobs — and it pains me to say that early-forties was considered “old” enough. And had to do those maddening team-building exercises that nobody seems to enjoy. That weird false familiarity that you can tolerate in small doses at the Christmas party just feels awkward in a small group. But embrace your inner sphinx, o wise one, and keep your sense of humor and a notebook for your character sketches.

That’s it exactly, false familiarity. Why do they insist on enforced socializing? It breeds nothing but irritation. I think it’s unhealthy to try to force people to be “friends”. I learned (the hard way) not to let my guard down around co-workers.

It’s just hard to feel like I belong when most of the people there have been there upwards of 20 years. I’ll always be the “new” person. Our little outing went much better than I’d feared, but I’m still glad it’s over. Until next year.